National Post for Preservationist / 'Visionary' Californian will become Nature Conservancy's president

Glen Martin, Chronicle Environmental Writer

Published 4:00 am, Friday, December 22, 2000

The Nature Conservancy, the world's largest nonprofit conservation organization, has tapped a prominent California preservationist to serve as its president and chief executive officer.

Steven J. McCormick, 49, will take over as head of the Arlington, Va.-based organization in February. He succeeds John Sawhill, who died in May of diabetes.

The conservancy is considered one of the most successful conservation organizations on the planet, focusing on consensus-building and land purchases to achieve its goal of protecting endangered ecosystems. Land protected by the group has grown to more than 12 million acres.

McCormick served as the executive director of the Nature Conservancy of California, the conservancy's largest state chapter, from 1984 to 2000.

During his tenure, the chapter grew from 15 to 150 staff members and raised over $300 million in contributions. The chapter currently protects about one million acres of land and operates with a $25 million annual budget.

McCormick implemented a unique "bioregional" approach to conservation while serving with the conservancy's California chapter, concentrating on preserving vast acreages. In the mid 1990s, he also chaired a committee that refocused the national group's overall mission.

McCormick is an anomaly in conservation circles -- someone esteemed as much by ranchers and government agency supervisors as environmentalists. "I can't find enough glowing words to describe him," said Robert Hight, the director of the California Department of Fish and Game. "He's a visionary. He brings people together. Under Steve, what was good for the conservancy was good for California."

Dan Macon, the executive director of the California Rangeland Trust, an open space preservation group founded by ranchers, said the state conservancy under McCormick emphasized both land protection and sustainable agriculture.

"The collaborative projects he developed were real models for protecting landscapes in the West," Macon said. "He embraced agriculture while simultaneously preserving prime wild areas."

Foremost among the many projects that reached fruition under McCormick are the 50,000-acre Consumnes River preserve, which conserves mature riparian forest and Central Valley wetlands, and the 75,000-acre Lassen foothills preserve, a vast tract of rolling oak woodlands east of Red Bluff.

McCormick also pushed through the 300,000 acre Carrizo Plains Preserve east of San Luis Obispo and negotiated the protection of Santa Cruz Island, the largest of the Channel Islands.

Under McCormick, the California chapter led efforts in the campaign that resulted in the March 2000 passage of two state bond measures that yielded $4 billion for conservation projects.

John Sawhill, McCormick's predecessor, took over the Nature Conservancy in 1990 after a lengthy association with the corporate management consulting firm of McKinsey & Co. He was known for a sophisticated management style that drew heavily on his business background.

Under Sawhill, the amount of acreage protected by the Nature Conservancy grew from seven million to 12 million acres.

In 1994, Sawhill chose McCormick to chair a conservancy committee that produced "Conservation By Design," a strategic mission statement emphasizing a bioregional approach to conservation.

The revised mission, McCormick said, "is a portfolio approach to conservation." It identifies an array of places in say, the Sierra, that would assure the biodiversity of the region if it was protected.

He said the conservancy has worked to develop a variety of ways to protect land aside from outright purchase of property. "One thing you learn with this approach is that it compels you to use strategies other than just land acquisition. You have to model ways people can live and work near and even in these areas."

McCormick said Conservation By Design will figure into several ambitious projects he plans to pursue as leader of the conservancy.

McCormick's replacement at the California chapter of the conservancy is Graham Chisholm, who will take office in January. Chisholm, the former director of the Nevada chapter of the conservancy, said California's environment faces a variety of threats, population growth foremost among them.

"Within 20 years, there will be 50 million people living in this state," he said. "The threats don't stop -- landscapes continue to be fragmented."

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